TBD: Island Hopping

Cousin

After a lovely trip to Texas spending time with family and friends (and BBQ and queso and really fast internet), I made it back home to Seychelles and promptly took a little weekend vacation to recover from my vacation to Texas. I had to recover from that jetlag somehow. A group of us went island hopping and visited Cousin, an island that is reserved exclusively for the birds and a few island keepers (not to be confused with Cousine, the neighboring island with a 5-star resort); Praslin, the second largest island here in Seychelles and a short ferry ride away from us on Mahe. We also swung by Curieuse to say hello to the other GVI base on the way. By noon on our first day, we had stepped foot on 4 islands including Mahe and had seen some beautiful birds, beaches, incredible views and said hello to some old GVI friends working on Cousin. Tough day. The second day involved a delicious breakfast overlooking the sea and another visit to Valley de Mai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home of the endemic Coco de Mer trees. I went there back in December, but it was raining and I didn't spend much time there. This time, it was a beautiful day and we walked up to the scenic overlook to get a great view of the entire place. Valley de Mai looks and feels a bit like Jurassic Park, I was just waiting for a Velociraptor to come crashing through the trees and tear one of us apart at any minute. Instead, a very nice German man stepped out of the trees and told us everything we ever wanted to know and some things we didn’t about the giant bronze gecko that lives on the Coco de Mer trees. They pee a lot when captured, in case you were wondering. Per usual, words can't do it all justice, so I'll stop typing and post the pictures already.